My Purposely Undriven Life

Magnify

The mail keeps coming, sometimes six or seven pieces in a day—glossy postcards, clever come-ons, thick envelopes full of promise and opportunity. “12 Nobel winners” one proclaims; “Vibrant intellectual community...producing 11 Rhodes Scholars since 1986” another attests. The packaging varies slightly—a close-up of a brunette in lab goggles squinting at a test tube; a brochure featuring hip, diverse co-eds chilling on a sunny quad—but the hook is the same: Come Here and Become Somebody. The economy may still be sucking wind, but evidently the college admissions gauntlet is going gangbusters. I’m convinced that it, along with 20 percent off coupons from Bed, Bath & Beyond, may be all that’s keeping the United States Postal Service afloat.

No printing or mailing expense has been spared to woo my wide-eyed daughter, a high school junior, and lure her into applying to their college. These may be institutions of higher learning, but they’re playing on baser instincts. None of the schools sending us glitzy marketing materials know anything about my daughter’s particular interests or skills, or has any reason (yet) to believe their program would be a good fit for her. The colleges are out to impress her, then score impressive application numbers, which leads to competitive acceptance rates, which translates into gloating trustees and more generous alumni. The tug-of-ego game goes like this: “Oh, look, we’re great, we want you! Apply here!” followed, frequently I fear, by “Sorry, you didn’t get in.” This is the rough and tumble world my not-quite-17-year-old daughter is gearing up for—her first SAT date fast approaching. I suddenly miss those tedious but simple grade school spelling tests.

The assumption driving the college application rigmarole is that 17-year-olds have some clue about who they are and what they need, educationally at least, in order to Become Somebody. Ideally that would be a Somebody with some means of gainful employment, though these days that takes divine intervention, not a diploma. But looking back on my own college experience (which, also, via multiple mailings, my alma mater keeps encouraging me to do—our 25th reunion is this spring, and nostalgia boosts reunion giving), I realize how clueless and aimless I was, and perhaps still am.